


The City She Loves Me

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Foxtrot [16]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Dollhouse - Fandom
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 11:59:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6237733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: any, any, what just happened? John sits in the Ancient Control Chair for the first time. Set in Season 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The City She Loves Me

**Author's Note:**

> Song credit: Under the Bridge by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

What just happened?  
  
John rose up from the control chair, dazed. One moment he'd been listening to Rodney and Zelenka squabbling about the chair and individual aptitude for interfacing with the chair, the next he'd been.  
  
Deep.  
  
Somewhere in his own head.  
  
He wasn't alone. Atlantis was talking to him. Warm. Soothing. But there was someone else in there with him. Multiple someones. They had just awakened, like the Wraith. And they were hungry. For touch. For interaction. For life. John waded into battle.  
  
_Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner._  
  
He was alone. He was outnumbered. He was crazy. He had double sets of memories. Not just the lie about the burn scar on his wrist, hidden by his wristband (which he knew he could never ever ever take off). He was going to lose this fight.  
  
_Sometimes I feel like my only friend is the city I live in._  
  
Then Atlantis was beside him, crooning in his ear, whispering promises. She could see the foreign architecture in his brain, see the hardware and the software. There were viruses in the software. She would quarantine them and delete them if he wanted.  
  
_The city of angels._  
  
She would save him.  
  
But he needed to understand them, to comprehend what was going on. So Atlantis explored, and she explained. He was many people. He was a shattered reflection of himself, broken and rearranged and patched over so he would be perfect, be exactly what Patrick Sheppard had paid for.  
  
He was a doll.  
  
_Lonely as I am, together we cry._  
  
Atlantis picked up the pieces, fitted them back together as best as she could. But she couldn't do it all at once. She could work on it, if he let her stay with him. So he rose out of the chair, and the display shut off. Rodney squawked indignantly, but there were other things John had to get done.  
  
"You can't just cut me off like that," Rodney called after him.  
  
John wasn't cut off from the city. When he flew in the puddle jumpers, she was with him, murmuring about flight controls, heads up displays.  
  
_I drive on her streets 'cause she's my companion._  
  
When John roamed the corridors on night patrols, ostensibly alone but with mistrustful marines trailing behind him (because he'd killed the man they looked up to, their natural leader), Atlantis let him know he was safe.  
  
_I walk through her hills 'cause she knows who I am._  
  
When John sat on the balcony outside his quarters and gazed up at the stars and imagined them winking out one by one as the Wraith spread across galaxies, the Wraith he'd awoken even after Elizabeth told him not to go, Atlantis hummed beneath him and promised him she'd help him defeat them. He had it in him to save them all.  
  
_She sees my good deeds and she kisses me windy._  
  
While John went about his duties, Atlantis whispered in the back of his head, brushed and caressed, made sure that the imprints inside of him stayed still and quiet so he could function. Nothing was amiss. He was just fine as the expedition's military commander.  
  
_I never worry._  
  
If one of the imprints cried out in the dark, in the middle of the night, John didn't mind. He was himself, and the imprints were a distant memory. Whatever the Dollhouse had tried to do to him, he had overcome it. He was fine.  
  
_Now that is a lie._  
  
Every time John sat down in the control chair, he knew Atlantis was there to fully merge with him, help him and protect him.  
  
_Under the bridge downtown is where I drew some blood._  
  
If he clenched his hands into fists so hard he drew blood, no one knew but him.  
  
_Under the bridge downtown I could not get enough._  
  
But he had to visit Atlantis in the chair. He couldn't do this without her.  
  
_Under the bridge downtown forgot about my love._  
  
After the disaster with Chaya, he knew he needed to make sure that the imprints stayed buried deep, because they could overwhelm him, break him, ruin whatever it was he had left (and some days it didn't feel like a lot).  
  
_Under the bridge downtown I gave my life away._  
  
Every time John sat down in that chair, he knew Atlantis would be there to build him up, help him, but he could never quite get rid of the lingering fear that when he sat down in that chair, he would be wiped away.


End file.
